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Special Agents: The Mysterious Case of the Monsters under the Bed (Part 8)

Rob and Dee leaned over Lauren’s arm their noses almost touching the scales. Dee huffed a lock of hair out of her face. Rob hummed to himself. Rachel watched them, arms wrapped around her shoulders and feet kicking as she tried to sit in a chair and stay out of the way. They were almost out of time. Their parents would be up in just a few hours.

Lauren started to answer, but a strange, haunting siren poured out her mouth. Carmichael shot off the wall and Rachel yelped in surprise. Lauren snapped her mouth shut and the siren stopped. Her brown eyes widened. She tried again. The siren filled the room waking a latent sense of danger and terror. It rose and fell in a series of undulating loops.

“That’s creepy,” Rachel said as Lauren closed her mouth.

“It sounds like an old air raid siren,” Carmichael said.

“Or like a tornadoes coming.”

Lauren started to open her mouth, changed her mind, and nodded instead.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Rob said shaking his head.

Dee and Sam burst in the door.

“It’s a mutant,” Sam said.

Everyone rounded on them.

“Someone crossed a bed monster with a sewer troll, and a hint of—”

“An imitation monster,” Rachel said.

Dee nodded.

“Well, that explains why we didn’t recognize it.”

Lauren stared down at her arm. A thousand questions tumbled through her mind but she couldn’t voice a single one of them.

“What does it mean?” Rachel said. Lauren nodded vigorously. “We have to be home,” Rachel checked her watch, “in an hour.”

“Sam, take care of their parents.”

Sam darted out of the room huffing and puffing. Rachel stepped to Lauren’s side taking her unbitten hand.

“Dee? Rob?”

“It’s quite a puzzle,” Rob said. “It used the bed monster to set the trap, the sewer troll to deliver the bite and give the monster more aggression, and imitation DNA to poison our Agent here.”

“There’s more,” Dee said. Worry clouded her face. Rachel shared a glance with Lauren. When adults worried it wasn’t a good sign. “We tested the saliva on all the monsters brought back. They weren’t just bred to have the strengths of each of their kind. They were bred to attack Rachel and Lauren. Their DNA has some very strange codes embedded in it. I even tested it. I put them each in a cell alone. When a picture came up of Peter Noles, his sisters, or even Sam, the cross-breeds did nothing. When either of you two came up,” she pointed to Lauren and Rachel, “the monsters went crazy.

Lauren tightened her grip on Rachel’s hand.

“They were designed to attack us?” Rachel said her mouth falling open.

“Looks that way,” Dee said.

“Who would do—” Rachel gasped. “It’s her.”

Lauren shook her head, waved her hand, and held up three fingers.

Everyone looked at her. She held up three fingers. Nothing. She sighed, pulled out her tablet and started typing with one finger as fast as she could.

Rachel read for her as she typed. “Lauren said there were three houses. Three houses with monsters under the bed that we were supposed to take out tonight. Did they have the same monsters?”

“We don’t know yet,” Carmichael said. “I had to send team Beta and Charlie to check them out. We should find out pretty soon.”

“What about Lauren?” asked Rachel.

“Victor’s working on an antidote. He has the saliva and seemed confident he can fix this.”

“If he can’t?” Rachel said.

“Don’t worry. We’ll fix it,” Carmichael said.

Lauren typed.

“She said we want to help.”

“You want to help?” Carmichael said. “Then go debrief with Casey. He needs to know everything that happened. We’ll plant some memories in your parents mind making them think you’re with your grandparents. That’ll give us some time. Let’s get to work people.”